Transcripts
1. Let's Go!: Hello and welcome to the
chill side of your day. My name is Adam Palmeter, and today you are
going to be painting a tropical abstract
painting for all levels. I started painting this style of work about six years ago, but it didn't take on
this tropical flavor until I moved and started
painting here in Mexico. You're going to learn how
to paint just like this. Think of your inspiration as lush jungle and
beautiful palm trees. In this class, you're
going to learn my entire process step by step. If you're looking at
these and thinking, oh man, I could
never paint this. I'm here to demystify the
entire process for you. We're breaking this down into
a step by step approach. By the time you're finished, you're going to be pretty amazed at what you're
able to create. I'm a self taught painter as
well as a stand up comedian. This class is going to be that
perfect blend of learning new painting techniques with a few punchlines along the way. I decided years ago that art was going to be
what kept me sane. It just makes everything better. In a world where it's so easy to find things
to stress you out, it's important to have an
action plan to help you relax. For me, that's artwork. I mean, living next to the beach here helps, and eating tacos. But for me mostly it's art. But this is not just
a painting class, this is an opportunity
to chill out and really sink into a
pool art project. I want to show you that
this process can be a fun, relaxing, and calming experience because we could all use it. Meditative artwork is
getting very popular. You're going to learn
to create and recreate brushstrokes that will help
enhance your accuracy. Plus it's going to
help you grow more confident in your
artistic abilities. But not just that, I'm also going to share with you a playlist I personally
use to set the mood. Make sure to click that
follow button just above so you're the
first to know as soon as I launch my next class or have more cool freebies to
share with my students. Let's grab those brushes and some paint and let's take
some time to chill today, for a little tropical
abstract painting and remarkable relaxation. If I don't see you on the beach, I'll see you in class.
2. Class Project: [MUSIC] For your class project, you're going to be
uploading a photo of your brand new tropical
abstract painting. Just like this. You're going to be using all the lessons, tips, and tricks that I use to produce a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork ready to be shared
with the world. At the end of this class,
just snap a quick photo of your work and upload that to
the student project gallery. There we can all take a peek
at each other's work and comment and support each other
on this artistic journey. Pro tip, snap some photos throughout your entire
painting process. That way you're going to have some juicy social media
content to share later. I've found that if I share my journey from blank
canvas to final piece, I get a lot more
engagement on my posts. Plus it's just plain cool to see the entire art process summed
up in just a few photos. If you choose to share
on social media, please tag me @adampalmeter as well as Skillshare@skillshare so we can see your skills
in all their glory. Now it's time to jump right
in and we're going to begin by gathering our supplies.
3. Supplies: [MUSIC] All right,
Skillshare fam, let's chat about supplies. First, let's talk about our brushes that we're
going to be using today. I have five brushes. This big boy right
here is going to be using for blacking
out our canvas. I leave a whole layer of black paint across the
canvas to begin with, and it's good to
use a brush that you really only want
to use for black. You can't really wash it out. If we're using lighter colors, it might bleed
into those colors, really affecting how
your paint looks. So it's good to have one
brush for black paint. Today, I'm going to be
using four brushes. Now, if you look here, they are all chisel tip, which means it is
at a slight angle, and it has this bit of a
point right here at the top. You can use flat head brushes or chisel tip for this
project, it doesn't matter. Just for personal taste, I like to use a
chisel tip brush. Now, these are all
different sizes. We'll be using them at different
points in our painting. First, for our dominant color, I'm going to use about
an inch thick brush. It doesn't have to be an inch. It can be a little
more, a little less, depending on the size
of your canvas as well. Then a slightly smaller, five-eighths of an inch
chisel tip, right here. Then again, a slightly
smaller chisel tip, and even a smaller chisel tip. Now, you don't have to use
all these different brushes. Again, this is more
personal preference. However, the brush strokes
are going to be smaller, as we go through the painting. We'll start with some
big brush strokes, slightly smaller,
slightly smaller, then itty-bitty brush strokes. You can use just one brush, and pay attention to the
size of your brush strokes. But for my personal preference, I have these brushes,
might as well use them. Palette. I just started
really using palettes, but for this class, I'm going to use one to show you all the different
colors that we'll be using right on top here. This is a brand new palette. If you don't have a palette, you can use a plate, a CD case, a laser disc case, a vinyl case, or anything
else that makes you feel old. Palettes are usually
used for mixing paints. But for the purposes
of this class, we're just going to be
using it to show you in bright bold colors what
we're using today. Paint. I am using very simple, very cheap, acrylic
paint that you can find at any art store really. I'll be using this black
water-based acrylic for the first coat that I use on my canvas to blackout
the whole thing. For my first color, I'll be using this, Color Shift, metallic blue flash
brilliant paint. This changes color in the light. I love metallics, as you're going to find out. I think this paint right
here is something special. Depending on where you are, where the light's hitting
it, it can be blue. It can be purple,
it can be greenish. It just has no idea what
it is, but it is gorgeous. My next color I'm going to
be using is this neon pink. It's super thick,
really, really bright. I think it's going to play off this purple really quite well. Again, something just really simple I picked up
at the art store. Back to metallics. My next color is going to be this water-based
metallic gold color. Just look how shiny
and beautiful that is. Metallics are going
to play off really well with the actual
colors we're using. This is going to be used
for our third layer. Finally, white. Again, a very simple
water-based acrylic. Nothing fancy. This is
good for mixing with colors or just on its own. But again, this is
going to contrast really well with all the colors, including that black background. I'm going to be using
these colors today, but you can choose
your own palette. The name of the game of this project is to
relax and have fun, and I really want
you to do that. So pick the colors
that speak to you. Water dish, very important
for washing off your brushes, getting all the paint out, and also pretty delicious. Finally, canvas. Let's talk about canvas. This is not a
fancy-pansy canvas. This is probably
the cheapest canvas they had at the art store. You don't need to have a
canvas for this project. In fact, if you want to put watercolor paper onto
your desk or on the wall, and just paint on
that, it's fine. I'll be using canvas,
but you don't have to. This is a 50 centimeter
by 70 centimeter canvas. It is fresh out of the bag. There is no gesso
treatment to it. I usually just use
a background layer of that acrylic black paint, and it gives it a
bit of a chalky feel and not that smoother
gessoed feel. But for all intents and
purposes of this project, we won't be using
a gessoed canvas, just something right
out of the bag. Today, we're also going
to be using a ruler, a pencil, and an eraser. We're going to be using these
to create a border around our canvas that keeps all of
our artwork in one place. So these are good to have. Finally, music. I love to listen to
music while I paint. I got to set the vibe. To do that, I usually
listen to a certain type of relaxing tropical music
to get me into it. Maybe you have music you love to listen to, but if
you're into it, I've uploaded a free YouTube
and Spotify playlist that I personally listen to right inside the
Class Assets folder. So feel free to light a candle, and listen to some
tropical spacey music to help get in the vibe, or if you have your own
favorite relaxing music, go ahead and put that on. Whatever works for you.
4. Blacking out Canvas: [MUSIC] Let's talk about
blacking out our canvas. Now this is just regular
canvas that I've covered in black
water-based acrylic paint. Let me show you how I did it. I love to use a
black background. However, I invite you to use whatever dark color
you'd like to use. Maybe a navy, maybe a
purple, anything works. I love how it's
not really glossy. It's got that chalky feel to it, which I think adds a
little bit more of a tooth for the
paint to grab onto. When we talk about
contrast of color, doesn't get any more
contrasting than with black. Black contrasts really
just about anything. But again, feel free to use
whatever color you want. We're ready to
blackout our canvas. I have my black paint brush, and I have my
water-based acrylic. Now, we just pour some black paint on it and brush it around nice and evenly, to get a nice black
coat on our canvas. [MUSIC] We're done. Thanks for
taking my class, peace. Just kidding. It does look
pretty cool and abstract. Let's use our brush now to make this nice and even
across the canvas. [MUSIC] I like to do these even brushstrokes up and
down the canvas. It's almost just as meditative
as the painting itself. I also spreads it
nice and evenly, and although you can
still see the canvas, coming through the paint, you will be left with these directional
brushstrokes that are not integral to our project, but just aesthetically pleasing. [MUSIC] Now I would like to
go the other way. The important thing here is
that it's evenly coated. Using long even brushstrokes
can help that along. [MUSIC] I don't want
to use too much paint. Using your brush, you make these long final strokes to pick up some of
this excess paint. Now you can see
with this canvas, it's very wet right now. It does dip a little
bit to the backing, but when it dries, it should
tighten right back up. Now that the front is finished, make sure to paint the
sides of your canvas. If it's hanging on a
wall in a gallery, it's really nice to
have the entire canvas have a complete
background color, just to make it look
really super nice. Taking that excess paint, I'm going to run it
just along the edges. Again, nice and easy, not too much, not too little. [MUSIC] We have these finishing strokes. It's already drying out. I'm going to do one
more pass, up and down. [MUSIC] We have a nice blacked
out canvas here. We're going to go wash our
hands and get ready for measuring out a border
for our canvas. Now, if it's wet, it needs to dry a little bit, but using this
water-based acrylic, it should take no time at all. If you'd like to
speed the process along, grab a hairdryer, put it on a low heat
and keep it about this far from the canvas to make
sure not to damage it, but just to help speed
along the drying process. It could even dry a
little bit faster if you leave it out in the sun, anywhere where it can dry quick. Let's jump to our next video.
5. Measuring: [MUSIC] Now that we've got
our Canvas all blacked out, let's measure this treasure. That sound weird [LAUGHTER]. Now that we have our
Canvas ready to go, these next steps, super-simple. Let's grab the pencil, eraser, and a ruler. I have my ruler here, and if you look at this painting
specifically over here, I've got a border going
around this painting. Not like these where it goes on the sides and covers
the entire Canvas. This one in particular is the style we're going
to be making today. What I like to do
is take my ruler, and just trace a line along
the edge of your Canvas. You can see the line right here, it's about that thick. You can choose whatever
thickness you want. But for simplicity, I just use whatever thickness
this ruler is, about an inch I'd say,
it's probably an inch. Taking our pencil and a ruler, we're going to put
a small border. Very lightly with our pencil, we're going to trace a small border around
the edge of this Canvas. Let's start by putting
our ruler in one corner. Now, this isn't going to
be an exact measurement, but line it up with
the side here. Take my pencil and
lightly make a line. It's very faint, but you can see it. Now using my ruler, I'm just going to
make a simple line around the entire border. Now you come to the corner, just turn your ruler over on
this side, and do the same. The idea here is to give
just a slight guide, a small border for our painting. You can see our very
slight line going all the way around making just about an inch thick border. This border is really going
to help refine our work and you're going to
see that later on in the class when
we're finished. I think it is about
time to start with some practice brushstrokes.
6. Practice Strokes: [MUSIC] Let's talk
about practice strokes. Practicing my brushstrokes
is something I do every day. Either with a paintbrush or on my iPad I'm always practicing the same strokes because
accuracy and brush control are skills that
develop with consistency. They're never perfect
and they never will be. But let's keep in mind that
maybe that's the goal. Remember that this is a
practice for you to have fun, relax, breathe in, breathe
out, and brushstroke. Let's get to the
different styles of brushstrokes that I
use in my paintings. As you can see in my paintings, there's really only a few things that I do just in
different ways. If you check out
my painting here, you can see all the
different directions that this is moving in. Some go up, some go down, some go in, some go out. I'm using a practice
Canvas which will be repurposed into one of these beautiful works
of art over here. But for now, I'm
using it just to show you how I paint with my brush. For the first brushstroke
we have, we're going up. I'm going to take a little
bit of paint just on the end of my brush and
using the pointed end, I'm going to have that
right here at the bottom. In one swift motion, I'm going to go up. I'm going to repeat
this brushstroke about five times in a row. We're going to start
here with the point up, up, up, up, up. Have a look here. It starts
very thick at the bottom, and as it goes up
using that edge, you're pulling off
of the Canvas to get these very wispy
little points up here. Talking about that
contrast we have, it's very thick black here
and it goes away into almost this ghosty, dusty gray. Let's try going up again. Starting at the bottom, up, up, up, up, up. Notice I'm resting my
pinky here sometimes. Now if this is wet paint, I probably wouldn't
do that but I'm using it just for
showing you to go up. As you can see, all of these, they're aiming in
the right direction. They're all going towards
seemingly a single point, maybe up here but
the idea is to get that natural quick brushstroke over and over again, going up. Try it one more time, up, up, up, up, up. Now, re-mix, we're going down. Same brushstroke,
different direction. We're going to get a
little bit of paint on the tip of our chisel tip here. Just in the same way as we
were going up we're now going to turn this brush to the
point at the top here, and go down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You can hear it drag across the brush as the paint
runs out and that's when you get this nice wispiness
here on your Canvas. But just like we did in the up or all of these are heading towards the same direction
same thing but the down. If we were to extend
all of these, they'd probably end
up around about here all in the same place. Let's try to aim for a place. They're not going to be perfect, they never will be, but
that's not the point. One more time going
down, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, breath in, breath out, repeat 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Notice my hand is just making the
slightest bit of effort. It's almost like using
chopsticks if you use those. Let's try one more 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have the up,
the down, the ins, and outs, or really
just side-to-side. It's all in the same brush, but just with a
different direction and a slight adjustment
of your hand. Now with ups and
downs, generally, my palm is facing out a bit. For ins and outs, my palm is facing in, and just like it says in the brushstroke is going
to come towards me. Again with my pinky here I'm going to pull this
right towards me, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Sometimes it's good to
take a full breath. Then as I exhale, I do as many of these
brushstrokes as I can and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We've got up, down in, out now, what can
out possibly be? Very good, it's an
outward brushstroke. It is the opposite of in. Whereas in, I had the chisel tip pointed away from me as the
brushstrokes came in, for out, I'm going to turn the chisel tip that way
to go away from me. For out, take our breath and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. These ones are a bit
longer and you don't have to have five or six
or 10 or any number, just whatever feels natural because if you look
here at our painting, all of these are
going to be fitting together like a puzzle, almost. We're going to begin
with the larger brushstrokes and then go into that painting and fill in all
the parts using either up, down, in or out. Let's get a few more
practice strokes in. Feel free to practice your brushstrokes as
much as you want, or just go back to college. [LAUGHTER] One more
go with the out, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Notice the curvature here. They're all pointing towards a point much like a palm tree. I like to think of
these as my palms. They're all going towards
a certain point here and your hand naturally curves as you're going with
the brushstrokes. We've got our
brushstrokes finished and you guys are looking
pretty sharp out there. If you're feeling
like you're ready, let's start by
prepping our Canvas.
7. First Layer: All right class. Now it's time to get into the real fun part of the class, and that is relaxation
and painting. We have our canvas
all ready to go. I have my border measured
out here in light pencil. Now, we're going to start
with our primary color. This is that color shift, the color that I was
telling you about. I can't figure out if
it's blue or purple, but it is delicious. We're going to pop this
open and I'm going to put a good smattering
onto my palette. I'm going to put a nice
smear. Look at that. Isn't that delicious? I'm going to be using
this blue purple as my dominant color
and it's going to be the darkest color
I'll be using across this whole palette for
a couple of reasons. One, it's beautiful. Two, it's best to have a darker background because
you're going to start to get a nice
corresponding contrast with the colors you're
using on top of it. Once again, you don't have
to use blue or purple, you can use whatever
color you want. This is just my
personal preference. For our primary color, I'm going to be using
our largest brush. This is the one-inch chisel tip. It's going to be
the largest brush, it's going to have the most
dramatic and larger strokes that I'm going to be
using for this painting. Let's start with
your biggest brush. Now, we don't need a lot
of paint on our brush, but let's mix it up a bit, and let's get our brush nice and saturated with
the color we're using. Let's get started. Now, going back to our
practice brushstrokes, I'm going to choose an area central in my canvas to begin. Let's start with some
simple downstrokes. Load up my paint here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. For this color where
the paint is thicker, it's actually a bit blue and where it's
thinner it's a bit purple, but it's still a nice
dark, rich color. Look at the contrast
here with the black. In my artwork, I
like to make palms. I like to think of this
as half of a palm. I've done all these down-strokes going towards the right, now I'm going to do some
downstrokes going towards the left to fill out the
rest of this palm here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Breathe in, breathe
out, begin again. As you can see, this curvature
almost comes fully around. They've overlapped a
little bit, not a problem. I filled in this space and now I want to do another
palm just below it, and I'm going to use an
opposite brushstroke. I'm going to be doing
some upstrokes and aiming towards this same area here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Again, we've gone
from left to right, let's move from right to left, still utilizing that
same curvature, as well as that same
aim towards the center. Now, let's make a palm
right next to it. Let's say we'll do
an instroke start. Turning the point of my
chisel tip away from me, I'm going to bring
this stroke all the way across the canvas. Well, not all the way across, but close enough.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10. Feel free to let the paint
run itself out of your brush. You don't need too much, but I think that contrasts between the thickness
of brushstrokes is another interesting
and engaging angle of this tropical
abstract art style. I'm getting up
against this border here. Here's a little tip. Even though we have a very
light pencil border here, sometimes I like to paint
right on top of it. It helps establish
the border with a little bit more boldness
and helps to remind you to stay within
those borders with a bunch thicker stroke
versus a very wispy stroke. It ends up playing with the composition a bit more if it's too light towards the edge. What I'll do is load
up on paint here, and I'll make this
one initial stroke. This will help me stay inbound, and also create a really rich
contrast along the edge. Now, moving in, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Feel free to overlap. Those intersections
and overlapping of the lines also help
with another contrast, that directionality
we were discussing. This abstract art works
pretty well because so many parts of it are
moving and contrasting, so we're going to keep
on paying attention to that and making
that our focus. Moving on to another palm. Starting here with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and look at this, I'm leaving room for a little bit
more of a dense border. That last stroke, I'm going
to load this up a little bit. Now, for this palm, we have a full circle palm here, we have a small half palm, a small half palm here. I like keeping it
varied that way. Instead of doing
a full palm here, I'm actually going to
go the opposite way, starting above it, 1, 2, 3. I'm going to leave that space. Now, what's your
painting is also just as important as what
you're not painting. When we rely on this contrast, this space between
these lines here, it's that contrast that's
going to start playing with your eye and draw you
into the artwork. You can always paint more, but you can't paint less. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Here's something to
pay attention to. Another formula contrast is
the size of our brushstroke. Not just in thickness
and the amount of paint, but look at how long this one is compared to how
small that one is. This really helps draw your eye all the way
down to the end there, so I encourage you
to play with size. Now let's go through
and continue to fill up our entire composition
staying within this border. One thing I like to do, and again, this is my
personal preference, but if you're brave enough to go over the same brushstroke, you can add a little
bit more paint just to the tip of it. As you can see here
where the paint is nice and thick and juicy, it adds a bit more texture and a color change in the
way where the beginning of the brushstroke is just
so much more thick and rich and saturated. But again, it's that
contrast we're looking for, and that's the
overriding theme here is contrast and continuity. Notice all the different
directions we're using. Am trying to get into every
little corner that I can and fill in these spaces with even smaller versions
of this brushstroke. This is where that accuracy, it really starts
to come into play. We've done quite a
bit of this already, you should feel loose, your
hands should be feeling good. Let's get into one of
these smaller areas here and just do really small space filler
petals or palm trees or leaves. Let's get right up in here. For this one, it looks like
it might only hold a few, but I'm going to aim for
this little area here with each of those brushstrokes. Even maybe just a little
baby brushstroke. It's good to be able to help sharpen
your brush a bit and then you end up with a
nice sharp tip again, and you don't waste any paint. Now the corners, here's a little personal
preference for me as well. I love the fact that
this is in a square, but the corners
have an opportunity to reach out of
that frame and it's a little bit more
noticeable up at the top as opposed to
along the edge here. At least two of my
corners are going to have these nice bigger bursts
coming off the edges. I just think it adds
a bit more drama. Going through just filling up all the space,
whatever feels right. Now here comes the fun part. This is almost like the
little treasure hunt away. You try to find all
the little small parts that need just a
touch more color. What we want to do here is
balance our composition. Have a look at this
painting over here. How everything seems
to be pretty tightly connected and that's
because what we do here is we take just a
little bit of this paint, find all these little sections, then you just a little love. You're adding just these
very almost delicate petals. I want to get in there
and almost just like a little swipe, a slash, and you'll be able to fit all these little petals to these really tight
little spots here. It's like you're
almost done with a puzzle that's taken
you forever and you're just finding just
the right things that just fit perfectly. That was nice, that looks good. Oftentimes it can be hard to look at a
composition and wonder, am I done? Is it enough? To that I say to
keep in mind that we have a few other colors that
we're going to be adding. So not to fill it up too much, might be the way to go. If you look over here, there's still plenty of black
space between the colors. But it has the pink, it's got the other pink and it's got the white
and it has the gold. Just keeping in mind and
planning ahead in a way, we'll discuss more
about composition as we move on
through the layers. But if you stand back and
look at your piece of work and think it's about
there, maybe it is. You can always add more. It's hard to add less. Another thing you can
do is the squint test, is you take a few steps back, close your eyes squint them, and you see if there are parts that have a little more color
or a little more black, and you should be able to
see what it looks like. We're going to
squint. Let's squint. Look at this. You know what? I think we could
use touch more of these smaller petals right here. Just adding this little detail. I think one just
coming down here. How about right there? I think now my painting
is looking pretty balanced and that's
what you want to think about when you're wondering
about this composition, do your squint test, have a look at it and
think, is it balanced? Is it heavier on one side
or lighter on the other? That's a great way
to be able to tell should you add more or add less. Now we're ready to move
on to the next color. I want to make sure
my paint is dry before I start painting
with the next color. Now you need to ask, is your paint dry enough to paint on top of
yet? Probably not. I usually like to give
it a few minutes. If you want to speed
that process up, maybe even a hairdryer. Keeping it away from
the canvas a bit will help speed up the
drying process. We're not really doing a
lot of intense painting, so really just getting a nice light drawing of a first coat should be
enough for what we're doing. I'm now finished with
my dominant color. The first one down here, I'm ready to move on to
my complimentary color, which is this
beautiful neon pink, and so pinky and I will
see you in the next class.
8. Correlating Color: [MUSIC] All right, class. Now we're going to move on to our complementary or
corresponding color for our purplish blue over here. We got this neon pink bad boy. Now, here's the thing, and I'll let you know
about neon colors. Neon colors, while
they look delicious inside the tube here, they actually dry a
little thinner with a little less saturation
than it looks right here. How can we turn up saturation? Well, what we do is actually add just a little bit
of white paint. I'm going to spare some of this. Not too much. Look how bright and
beautiful that is. Wow. You want to put a candle in it and sing
happy birthday, I know. But we're going to take this, and now we don't
need a lot of white. We're actually just going
to use a touch of it. What that white does
is actually give a little bit of structure, a little more backbone
to the actual pigment. It's slightly choppier, but as you can see here, the way it dries, it looks very good. It's still super bright. This is not going
to be as bright as when it comes
out of the tube. Let me grab our white, and again, just a tiny bit. I'm just going to take literally just this little dab right here. I'm going to put that,
I'm going to mix that with the pink. To be honest, I'm probably not going to
use all of this paint. But looking at it,
you can see how the white blends with it. It's still nice and bright, but it gives it a little
bit more staying power after it dries. There we go. Let me just put this white down before I drop
it or drink it, we'll see what happens first. Now with our next color, I'm going to actually switch brushes from the
big one inch one, to this three-quarter
inch brush, or is it five-eighths
of an inch? Slightly smaller but
same chiseled tip, same brush because
I'm going to be using a smaller brushstroke
this time around. Let's mix up some of
this paint right here. Now just like last time
we started in the middle, and I'm going to
do that as well. But this time I'm
going to be paying attention to what
I already painted. Mainly the direction. If you look at over here, all of these palms
are heading that way. We're going to add contrast of not just color, but direction. As we see, these
ones are going up. I'm going to come in, at a bit of an angle right here, and go over this middle section. This nice bright thing, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and it just fades out. Now I'm going to put a little bit more
paint onto my brush. As we went to the right, now I'm going to continue
this palm to the left, but not too far. I am using actually smaller
and smaller brushstrokes. This has a lot of contrast
in it for a lot of reasons. These are really small, very dense brushstrokes, and they get more dense, little bigger, less dense, until they just fade out. Let's try that from
another angle. See over here. These are going that way. These are going this way. I think an upstroke will be a really nice contrast
for direction there. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Again, the same thing.
I'm going to go to the other side of this palm I started and just
finish it out. See, one, two, look at that. It's nice, and saturated, and small. I'm going
to continue that. I'm actually going to
make an even smaller one. Color at angle just
right along the edge. I'm going to come
from this side. One, 2, 3, 4. Just a little bit more paint. Six, 7, 8, 9, 10. Now I'm going to
come in here and add just a tiny one on the end. You know what, maybe two, one. This is cool. These colors working together bring almost like a
vaporwave aesthetic. It's got this midnight
looking blue, this neon pink, and then impressed against
that black background, that contrast, I love
it. I don't care. Let's get into this
now. Here we go. Now, again these directions
all going this way. I'm going to come
at it at an angle, and we're going to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9. Now, we have to pay
attention to the spacing. That's part of the contrast. Again, when we do that sweep test and you see
just how even it is, we can see that this is a
pretty large palm here. This one is pretty dominant. This area, if I were to put a more dominant palm with a lot of heavy
saturated paint, it would start to crowd a bit, and the complementary colors and these corresponding colors are really meant to just help
lift your background. We want to give it
a bit more depth. That's why you have this
contrast in color where it just gives you that
extra pop, that extra 'zaz. Over here, I want to be careful not to make anything too big. Let's match on this
side a little bit, and then see which way
everything's moving on. I'm just going to do
a few small ones, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Just enough. Here we are. This one, which way should
we go? Let's go this way. Nice. We can hear
that holding of the brush as it runs out of
paint just along the canvas. When you hear that
little dragging noise, you know your paint is on
its way out of the brush, and you're getting these
wispy-ish go strokes, I guess you can call them. Just like we did on
the original layer, I'm going to double
up sometimes. I don't know, feeling good. Let's take a little bit. I'm going to double up
on this stroke right here and just make that
pop a little bit more. I'm going to give that
extra layer of this neon, make these strokes just a
touch more dominant here. By now, you should
really be able to get a sense of your composition, and the idea of making it
balanced, making it level. [MUSIC] I'm going to give this
a little squint test. That is pretty. Let's see, I'm seeing a couple
of weaker areas, maybe right up in here. Maybe a touch around this
area, possibly over here. Again, we don't
want to overdo it, but sometimes you got to
live on the edge, baby. Here, this is that filling in the
puzzle piece part again, where you're just using smaller, and smaller brush strokes. Well, I think this
passed the squint test. I like how some of the
areas are still open, because we're going to be
using two more colors still, and we want to be
able to give them a little bit of the spotlight. Your composition should be looking something
similar to this. We're going to be leaving
some of these pockets open for other colors because we still have two
more to get through. Speaking of which, it's time to move on
to our next video, and it is all about gold.
9. Gold Accents: [MUSIC] It is the golden hour. It is time to paint with one
of my favorite colors, gold. Gold is just so
shimmery and lovely and tends to compliment and accent really just
about any color. As you can see, super shiny, a bit watery and we're not going to be using a whole lot of this. I'm only going to put a little
touch on our palette here. Now what we're doing, same thing we've been doing,
relaxing and painting. Now because we have a smaller brush,
what does that mean? Smaller brushstrokes. Same brushstrokes, just a little bit smaller. This gold is going to
look really good here. What we need to do is
again, same rules. We're going to be
filling the gold in where it best adds a contrast. Now this is our second
metallic color, but it is much brighter than
our first metallic color. Sometimes it can be tricky
blending two metallics in the same compositions but I find that gold accents just
about everything pretty well. We're going to find
places that either just touch on the pink or
outside of the pink. I'm going to start
concentrating on places away from the pink. Let's see again,
right in the middle. [MUSIC] Now we're experiencing a few different
types of contrasts. We have the directionality, we have the color contrast, we have the contrast and the thickness of
our brushstrokes. Now we have a brand
new metallic contrast. Now here, I'm going
to be going up here. I'm going to start doing some crosshatching across the pink. They just come in at
completely different angles and you can really
see a good contrast. Now if your brushstrokes aren't coming out as
straight as you want them to or as perfectly as
you want them to, practice. I do this just about
every single day. Still not perfect, but I'm pretty relaxed. [MUSIC] Back to the squint test. Let's see how our composition
is balancing out. I see a few areas that
could use just a bit more. Keeping in mind, we have
one more color after this. I think we've got just about enough gold here on
our composition. We are ready to move
into our final color, and I hope you are
ready to join me in our next video when
we explore white.
10. Finishing Touches: [MUSIC] All right, well, we've made it to
our final color. I hope you're ready to enjoy
a little bit of white. Hopefully feeling at
this point pretty relaxed. I know I am. I'm going to take out, again, not a whole lot of white. We're really not going
to use a whole lot. I'm just going to put a little, watch out for those pigeons. Now, moving on to our final color means we're
using our final brush. This is the teeny tiny brush, still a chisel head brush,
just like the others. It's just pretty adorable. Smaller brush means, you guessed it, even
smaller brushstrokes. Now, these brushstrokes
are going to be small. I call these petals. We're going to be doing
a few just petals around just to decorate it
much like this one right here. We don't see long exaggerated
brushstrokes with the white, we just see teeny tiny petals and I think those are going to be the perfect accent to this. Let's see, let's find
some places. Here we go. We'll start again in the middle. One, two. We're only going to
do petals in either one, two or three. Just to keep it small. Let's find another one here. One. As you can see, these little white petals pop
right off the page there. This is probably
the most contrast you'll see when dealing
with the colors. Obviously, it's fairly dark
with some lighter spots, but the overall composition
is pretty dark. This white just
jumps right off that purple and black in
such a dramatic way. I save white as my final
accent color for this reason, it's just so overpowering. Anything that goes on top of the white is really just kind of ending up muddling the
overall composition. Now we'll continue. For me, it's these
brushstrokes that take the most concentration
and more focus, however, usually around this time
in my painting process, I'm pretty relaxed, I'm in the flow, I'm in the zone, and it's just good
to breathe in, breathe out, and just do very delicate small
brushstrokes. Again, we want to
pay attention to the spacing we're putting in between our brushstrokes and just let them dance
across the canvas. All of these petals
are fat and short, like everyone in my family. Now even though we're near
the end of our project, you might feel a need to rush a little bit but I implore you to just take time with
these brushstrokes. I find that if you focus on these really
small brushstrokes, it helps you hold your breath, you feel more focused. I think it's a great terms to become a bit more accurate
in your brushstrokes. When I do these petals, I like to envision them
gently falling from the sky, like flower petals, but more
at the pace of a snowflake. See when you do a
squint test now, you can really see all
the white popping off. Maybe just a couple more. Small, subtle, but with
a lot of contrast. Now I'm really just adding
a few more single petals. I think we might
be done. One more. Perfect. I am pretty happy with this
composition, I have to say. I love the colors, I love
how it all works together. I think there's a
lot of contrast. I think we did a
great job, class. If you've made it this far in
the class, congratulations. It seems you'd like
to hang out with me. I just want to take a
little bit to talk about the composition and why
it's working so well, and what we've
discussed in our class. First, color, between the black and the white, and then neon pink, the gold, and the bluish purple, there's a lot of
color contrast there. We have cool colors, we have warmer colors, and then the classic
black and white, those really pop off each other. Now let's talk about the
contrast of our brushstrokes. We have these really
large ones in the back, dominating the whole canvas. Then we have smaller pink ones, smaller gold ones, and of
course, small white ones. It's a great variety
of contrasting sizes, and as well as our next point of
contrast, directionality. Which way all of
these are going. There's up, down, left, right, in, out. All these different directions
help pull your eyes into different sections
of this composition. I believe this type
of composition offers a lot of movement, which is I think a overall
large defining factor of abstract art. Using certain layers and
different contrasts, your eyes start to move
with the painting. There's a lot of energy in this, although this is a
relaxing and chill class, there is still quite
a lot of movement, a lot of bright colors. This is just one
color palette option. This one is roughly the same. This one is a bit different. I like pink. This one
is kind of inside out. I began with a white
canvas and then did colors rainbow and then
added black on top of that. Same style as this right here, and if you'd like to learn
how to make these rainbows, you can take my first
Skillshare class, which is making beautiful abstract rainbows
using highlighters. I'll drop a link to that class down below in the description. Last but not least, we
need our final touch, which is your signature.
11. Signature: [MUSIC] All right. Now, it's time to add the most
important part of the painting, and it's time for you to take responsibility for your actions. That's right, the signature. I sign just about every
piece of artwork I do. It is letting everyone
know who painted this. Take some time, take
some special care. It might just seem like a
signature at the beginning, but really, it's
pretty important. I'm going to be using
the same small brush and some white. I usually pick bottom-right
corner to sign my name. The number 1 quality I want in my signature is legibility. This is the most
important because, if I paint a mural, or a canvas, and someone sees it, I want them to be
able to find me. When I paint murals, I want people to find
me on social media. My signature is actually my social media handle
just, @ADAM PALMETER. I also like to stylize
my signatures so it feels more consistent
with the painting. As you can see with
my signature here, it's a little more abstract, a little more out there, but I think it flows well
with the artwork itself. I had the same thick
and thin lines that you will see in my artwork, that I incorporate
into my signature. Some artists like
to date their work, and that's totally
optional and up to you. Well, now that we've
got that all packed up, I have a few more
things I want to share with you in our next
video for today.
12. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Well, I hope this class has
been as fun and as relaxing for you as
it has been for me. If you enjoyed this class, please let me know
in the reviews. If you didn't enjoy this class, come say it to my face. [LAUGHTER] But in
all seriousness, I do love reading reviews, so thank you for that. I also love hearing
back from students, either here in the
SkillShare discussion thread or on social media. In fact, if you decide to share your project on social media, please tag me @adampalmeter as well at SkillShare @skillshare
so we can check out, comment on, and share the magic of artwork
with the world. Last thing, please don't
forget to follow me here on SkillShare by clicking that
Follow button right up top. That means you'll get
a notification as soon as I launch my next class, or if I have some cool freebies and resources to share
with all of you. I hope you enjoyed this meditative and
created painting project. Also if you're looking for a digitized option
of this class, maybe in Procreate on your iPad, please check out my class,
Procreate and Chill. It's the same vibe, a lot of the same skills, and I think you'll
really enjoy it. Thanks for hanging out with me, hope you had a great time, and I will see you
in my next class. Adam Palmeter, over and out. [MUSIC] I think we got enough to throw
together. That's a wrap. Confidence, confidence,
confidence dance, confidence, confidence, confidence dance.
Is that rolling? You can eat monkey meat, well, most monkeys, but
not all of them. This blue, brilliant, flattened [NOISE] mixing
[NOISE] I got paint on my shoe. Well, they're not
mine. [NOISE] Let's talk about our practice. I wonder how many
dogs are being walked right now. Feel free. Canvas. Canvas. Now Canvas. [BACKGROUND] This is
about having fun, relaxing, trying to
align your chakras. We found what was
out of alignment and the answer will shock you. It has a nice chalky [NOISE] You got this? You got this. This is a Canvas. [NOISE] [LAUGHTER]This
is Canvas. [NOISE] I want to take a minute to talk
about this painting. It's pretty cute.
It's pretty special. It's a circle. That's
about all half. I think we're good. I think we're good. [NOISE] Let's end on a high
note. [NOISE] [BACKGROUND]
Adam Palmeter, Artist / Comedian / Teacher / Author
